


maybe you’re the reason

by ghostlypup



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Teeny bit of angst, not much happens just domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlypup/pseuds/ghostlypup
Summary: Lucas looks at him for a while with his head rested in his palm. He watches as Eliott concentrates, his bottom lip pulled gently between his teeth and his eyebrows slightly scrunched together. That’s also another thing he loves. Getting to see Eliott the way no else really sees him. Unguarded and authenticity himself. It gives him a heady feeling knowing that he’s the one Eliott trusts enough to show that side of himself.Or, 3 times Lucas says I love you without saying it, and 1 time Eliott does.
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 27
Kudos: 220





	maybe you’re the reason

1.

Lucas groans as he lets himself fall to the ground. He sits on the hardwood floor but then lays back instead, stretching his limbs, his back popping uncomfortably. It’s the last day of moving, and they’ve been on their feet non stop; lifting and carrying heavy boxes and now Lucas has aches and pains in muscles he didn’t even know he had.

But, despite the dim ache in his back, he feels so light he could float. Because now, he’s laying down on the floor in his new apartment, with his boyfriend, and he’s living with his boyfriend, alone, together, in their own little world. 

So, as he lets his arms fall above his head, his legs spread out, he just  _breathes_.  And smiles. Wide, until his cheeks start to ache too. He closes his eyes.

And then he exhales. 

“You alright down there?” He can feel Eliott’s shadow looming over him. But he keeps his eyes closed, turning his head and letting the cold wood brush against his cheek.

“Mhm,” he stretches a bit. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable in my life.” 

Eliott snorts, nudging Lucas’ ankle with his foot a bit. “You do realise we have a couch right over there, and,” he points their room. “A mattress in there too.” 

“So?” 

“You’re so weird.” Lucas can hear the smile in his voice. “We actually have one more box left at my parent’s, by the way.” 

Lucas groans. “I don’t think I’m gonna be moving from this position for about a week.” 

“Oh is that right?” 

“Yup.” He stretches animatedly and over the top before turning his head again and opening his eyes. They fall onto Eliott’s and he smiles, and Eliott smiles and then they’re smiling together, at each other. Nothing but their happiness and love filling the room. 

“Well, in that case.” Eliott leans down and falls on his back too so that their sides are touching. “Looks like I’ll join you.” 

Lucas turns his head the same time Eliott does and their noses touch. Lucas giggles and lifts himself up a bit before planting his head down on the middle of Eliott’s chest. 

“I take it back,” he says on a heavy, relaxed exhale. “This is much more comfortable.” 

He feels Eliott’s laugh beneath his ear and he closes his eyes briefly; the sound making his stomach do all sorts of flips. He wishes he could listen to it on a loop over and over again. The light, floating feeling comes back and he feels like he could lift off the ground; like he’s one of the specs of dust that float around the room when the sunlight hits just right. 

Lucas shimmies his head up and lets it fall into Eliott’s neck, then slings a leg over his hip for good measure. He squeezes, trying to get closer even though it’s physically impossible.

Eliott’s hands gently sift through Lucas’ hair and every so often he’ll scratch gently at his scalp, making his whole body feel like molten, as if he could melt into the floor. And paired with Eliott’s heartbeat providing a soft  _thump, thump, thump_ under his ear, his eyes feel droopy and heavy and he realises that he’s a minute away from sleep; the drowsy feeling starting to cover over him like a blanket. 

But just as he’s about to drift off, his stomach makes an embarrassingly loud noise and in the emptiness of the apartment it echoes. It makes him groan and makes Eliott laugh.

“Fuck, I didn’t realise how I hungry I was.” He smushes his face into Eliott’s chest. “I honestly don’t think I can move again though.” 

Eliott rubs his hand down Lucas’ back. “I can make something and bring it over to you if you want.” 

“God, no. I’m never letting you near that kitchen.” 

”What! Why?” Eliott whines, shifting around a bit and tugging on Lucas’ hair teasingly. 

“I think you know why, my love.” Eliott rolls his eyes. 

“That was like, one time.” 

“You mean five times.”

“Whatever.” Eliott sighs, fondly. “So what are you gonna do about this?” He says, poking gently on Lucas’ stomach when it lets out another embarrassing groan.

“I don’t know.” He squeezes himself into Eliott. “What food do we even have?” He muffles into Eliott’s chest. Honestly, he can’t tell which feeling he wants to give into; sleep or hunger. 

“We’ve got bread—“

“Ah, delicious.” 

“Hush.” Eliott pinches his hip lightly. “We could make toast or something.” 

Lucas sits up a bit, crossing his arms over Eliott’s chest and resting his chin on top of them. 

“That actually sounds nice.” A heavy sigh escapes his mouth and then he gets himself out of Eliott’s embrace and raises himself on his feet. 

Lucas feels like he’s just run a marathon with how bad his muscles ache and so he wobbles slightly over to the kitchen, Eliott’s muffled laughter trailing behind him. 

He finds the bread packed in their boxes and he’s just about to start toasting it when he hears Eliott swear loudly. He scrambles over to their living room as quickly as possible.

“What? What happened?” 

Eliott sighs deeply, his shoulders hunching over from where he stands in front of the boxes. 

“The box we left at my parent’s is the one that had my medication in it.” 

“Fuck.” 

“Yeah,” Eliott laugh slightly. He brings his hands to his face and groans into them. “I knew I’d fuck something up.” 

“Hey,” Lucas says, coming up and gently dragging a hand down his back. “You didn’t fuck anything up.”

“Yeah, well.” Eliott lets his arms fall to his sides. “I’ll call my mum and see if she can drop them round or something.”

Lucas nods briefly before he suddenly remembers.

“Hang on.” He pushes past Eliott to walk over and grab his bag from their bedroom. He unzips it and breathes a gentle sigh of relief when he sees it. “Here,” Lucas says, walking back out, “I always keep a spare few in my bag just in case.”

Eliott’s face smooths out into something like relief and adoration.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Lucas shifts on his feet, shrugging a little. “You left some on accident when you stayed round mine one time, and I always just kept them.”

Eliott takes them and plays them over in his palm. He looks up at Lucas again, shoves then in his pocket and takes Lucas’ face between his hands instead.

“How are you even real.”

“Shut up.” Lucas laughs, he cheeks heating under Eliott’s palms.

Eliott shakes his head gently before leaning down and pressing a chaste kiss to Lucas’ lips. Lucas grabs the back of his head, however, and keeps it there and kisses him lazily for a minute, until his breath become heavy and Eliott’s hand becomes tangled in his hair.

“How tired are you really?” Eliott whispers, into Lucas’ mouth, bringing his hands down Lucas’ stomach and scratching gently over his abs. Lucas gasps and clenches instinctively. He slings his arms around Eliott’s shoulders.

“Let’s see, shall we.”

2.

Being with Eliott for almost a year now, Lucas had learnt a thing or two. Like, how Eliott is actually a huge morning person and always wakes up before Lucas does. How he prefers tea to coffee, how he always sleeps with one leg out of the covers, how he has showers on the colder side, how he does this thing where he talks a beat too fast when he’s nervous, how when he finds a new song he likes he’ll have it on repeat until he’s sick of it.

And, one thing he’s learnt is that Eliott  _really_ hates change.

Be it good or bad, Eliott seems to have built this wall around everything and so when it gets knocked down, Eliott is left defenceless and vulnerable. So, a week after they moved in together and they’d become more or less settled, it didn’t surprise him when Eliott went to bed one night and didn’t wake up again until later in the evening the next day.

He'd tried explaining it to him one day, a while ago when they were laying in bed, talking about the idea of moving together. It was in hushed tones, ideas whispered into the air and between their sheets.

_It will be hard for me,_ he said.  _Even if it’s good, it will be hard because my brain is funny and it doesn’t like change. It thinks it’s bad and will make me think that everything needs to stay the same for me to be comfortable._

He understood. Or, understood as much as could. There’s only so much his love can really understand. Some days he wishes he could step directly inside Eliott’s shoes, experience exactly what he experiences, just so he knows the right thing to say and how to comfort him. But he realises that’s a stupid idea, because that’s not really love. He doesn’t need to be Eliott to know how to love him. Lucas is his own person and even when he has bad days, sometimes he never really knows what comforts him. And he’s pretty sure Eliott’s the same.

Maybe, it’s not a consistent thing, comfort.

Like today. It’s been a week since they’ve moved in and Eliott has been in bed all day. Sometimes it was sleeping, sometimes it was him awake just led there, sometimes it was him watching the movie playing from Lucas’ phone, some random film that he asked if Eliott didn’t mind him watching as he sat there next to him.

He didn’t really know what to do. He knows Eliott says that just him being there is enough, but on some days he knows that him being there is too much. He’ll say  I feel like you’re drowning me Lucas.  And on some days he also knows he’s not enough. Eliott will hug him tight from behind, acting like it’s never close enough even though their whole bodies are intertwined.

So he decides what would cheer him up.

He hops out of their bed, out of Eliott’s space where he’d slumped next to him and fallen asleep again.

Once he’s in the kitchen he brings down the jasmine tea from their shelve and begins to boil some water. They’d brought the tea when they did a big grocery shop, when they’d spent way too money than they needed to, caught up in the excitement that they could just get what they wanted and too distracted from each other’s company to care. Eliott had brought it, saying he liked the smell of jasmine, so why not try it in some tea. 

But it got shoved to the back of the cupboard with the chaos of everything else they had brought, and they’d forgotten about it. Or, Eliott hadn’t forgotten about it but his mind became just as muddled as their cupboard.

Once he’s made it, poured in one of Eliott’s favourite mugs, a white porcelain with a small rainbow at the bottom, he brings it over to their room.

He sets it down on their bedside table and sits down next to Eliott. His weight dipping down the bed stirs Eliott naturally and he groans softly into the pillow, his arm tightening around the covers. Gently he reaches forwards and pushes Eliott’s fringe off his forehead, coming down to smooth out some of the creases the fabric of pillow had left on the side of Eliott’s cheek. His fingers dance then, lightly over Eliott’s skin, and ever so slightly he nudges Eliott’s shoulder with his other hand, pinching the skin as gently as possible. Underneath him Eliott’s breathing becomes lighter and after a few seconds pass his eyes blink open at Lucas’.

“Hey.” He whispers. He doesn’t really need to. The flat is silent apart from their steady breathing.

“Hey.” Eliott whispers back, his voice etched with sleep. 

“I made you tea.” He runs his hand through Eliott’s hair again, scrunching up the end of his hair a bit so it stands tall and messy. “The jasmine one you brought.” 

“Mm,” Eliott sighs into his pillow. “I forgot we brought that.” 

Lucas smiles. “Wanna sit up and try it?” 

Eliott nods and rearranges the pillow. Once Lucas hands him the tea he stacks his own pillow and lays next to him. 

“You like it?” Lucas asks after Eliott takes a small sip.

“Yeah, actually. It’s sweeter than I imagined.” Eliott leans onto Lucas’ shoulder a bit. “Wanna try some?”

Lucas shakes his head gently. “I’m okay. Not a big tea fan.”

Eliott smiles. It’s only small, a tug on the corner of his lips and his eyes shutting briefly. But it’s there, and Lucas feels so relieved he could cry.

“The more for me, then.” Eliott says, looking up at Lucas with that same smile. Lucas gives him one twice as big.

“Wanna watch another movie?” Lucas asks, twisting to rest his chin on Eliott’s head. “I can get my laptop this time.”

“Yeah, okay.” Eliott whispers.

Once Lucas gets his laptop and Eliott leans into his side, it isn’t long before Eliott starts feeling heavier and heavier on his shoulder, until Lucas takes the mug out of his hands and puts it on their bedside table again and Eliott is falling down and gently snoring into his lap.

And maybe, he forgot about the tea. But it’s what made him smile, and maybe that’s all that really matters right now. Whether it’s what will make him smile when this all eventually happens again, or whether it won’t.

Lucas will figure it out.

3.

It’s a kind of rule they have between them. A rule neither of them had ever said out loud or agreed on, it just always happened, unspoken and they’d kept it that way.

And that is, they always go to bed together, at the same time.

It happened easily at first, Lucas always coming home early and Eliott finishing work or uni not long after. They’d eat dinner, wash up together and then get ready for bed together and then fall asleep together.

But then their days started to get longer. Eliott coming home a bit later from work, picking up a few evening shifts. Or Lucas coming back late in the evening from a study session with Imane that ran a bit longer without either of them realising. But regardless of how late they get back, they always stayed up for each other, even if it was subconsciously. Which means that now, Eliott hunched over his laptop on their kitchen table, working on a uni deadline, Lucas is sat opposite him with his head rested on his hands, minutes away from sleep.

They’d started off doing work together; Eliott working on his essay and Lucas revising for his exam that he had next week. But then Lucas yawned, and yawned again, and once more before he finally shut his book and let his head fall to the table.

“You can go to bed you know.” Eliott says distractedly, his fingers moving across his keyboard.

Lucas shakes his head from the table, his eyes still closed. “I’m fine.”

“Sure, he says falling asleep.”

“Hey,” Lucas protests weakly, his eyes heavy and voice thick with tiredness. “I’m here for moral support.”

“Okay,” Lucas can hear the smile in his voice. The tapping on his keyboard stops briefly. “But I’ll kick you if you start snoring.”

Lucas lifts his head, squinting his eyes. “I’m not gonna fall asleep.”

“Whatever you say.” Eliott replies, raising his hand in mock defence.

It gets quiet again, Eliott’s short breath and typing filling the room.

“You know you can go to bed, though. I’m not going anywhere.” Eliott says, more gently this time.

“I know.” It’s not that Lucas is being stubborn. It’s just— he genuinely will wait for Eliott. If there’s one thing about living with someone you love that Lucas is enamoured with, it’s always getting to fall into someone at the end of the day. Letting everything seep away between someone’s skin, warm in bedsheets and tangled limbs. He’d take it every time over falling asleep alone. “But I don’t mind, promise.” 

“Okay.” Eliott smiles. 

Lucas looks at him for a while with his head rested in his palm. Watches as Eliott concentrates, his bottom lip pulled gently between his teeth and his eyebrows slightly scrunched together. That’s also another thing he loves. Getting to see Eliott the way no else really sees him. Unguarded and authenticity himself. It gives him a heady feeling knowing that he’s the one Eliott trusts enough to show that side of himself.

He stands, then. The scrape of his chair making an ugly sound in the silence of the apartment. 

“Finally listening to me?” 

“No.” Lucas rolls his eyes. He then moves to flip the switch on their speaker, picking a slow and soft melody from his phone and putting it on the lowest volume.

He walks over and opens their fridge. They desperately need to go grocery shopping, but it keeps getting pushed back; both of them too busy with school or work. But he grabs the thing he knows they have and Eliott loves— some strawberries; fresh from the market they went to a few days ago with Lucas’ mum. 

Cutting them up into smaller pieces, he puts them into a bowl and brings it over to the table. 

“For you.” He says, sitting back down and pushing the bowl over the Eliott’s side. “Brain food.”

Eliott smiles at him as if he’d just slid across a bowl filled with endless gold. He takes Lucas’ hand and kisses his open palm.

“Thank you.” He says, leaning the side of his face into Lucas’ palm.

And it’s just... so weird, Lucas thinks. Just how many moments there are that will have him feeling like he’s falling in love for the first time all over again. It seems endless, with Eliott. They’ve shifted into something more natural and fond now, but there isn’t a day that goes past where Lucas will be hit with a sudden rush of adrenaline and will want to scream  _I love you_ over and over again until his words become muddled and transform into something else.

“You’re welcome.” Lucas replies, dragging his thumb over Eliott’s cheek. Eliott gives it one last kiss before he leans off Lucas’ hand, plops a strawberry in his mouth and continues to focus on his work.

It goes quiet again but this time the song playing trickles around the kitchen. Lucas closes his eyes again, leaning his head on his palm. He daydreams that he and Eliott are dancing to the song, slow and steady. Maybe they’re at a wedding. At  _their_ wedding. Isn’t that a thought? Lucas's lips tilt up naturally at the idea.

He daydreams until it gets a little hazy after a few minutes; golden and swirly and blurred around the edges; random vignettes that turn iridescent and make Lucas feel warm all over. Until the hardwood under his head is instead a soft pillow, until his back is being covered by another body instead of the chilly air. Until his daydream is a dream of blue skies and strawberries and dancing.

+1

It’s his first exam today. 

Like always, he feels underprepared even though he’s spent what feels like infinite days preparing and revising. His brain feels like mush all of a sudden; as if all the knowledge he’d spent hours memorising had seeped out into his pillow through the night and now the only thing he can think of is how nervous he is and how he’s going to completely fail every question. 

The worst part is that it’s an afternoon exam. Meaning Eliott had to leave early in the morning. He’d left when Lucas was half asleep, toying with the idea of waking up with Eliott or falling back asleep. He ended up going with the second option, and as he felt the sleep claw back over his body, he also felt Eliott push back his hair gently and press a kiss to his forehead, whispering  _good luck._

Lucas thinks he remembers grumbling something back in reply but he can’t remember, all he knows is that he wishes Eliott was here to calm him down  now. 

He debates calling him. But then he thinks he’s probably busy anyway, and he knows that if he saw Lucas calling he would put everything aside regardless, which isn’t fair, Lucas thinks. It’s just— he needs to leave the house in around 10 minutes, but it feels like there are weights strapped to his feet and he can’t move. And he doesn’t know what to do. 

Sighing heavily, he grabs his phone from his pocket and starts calling Yann instead. It’s just as he’s waiting for him to pick up that he notices the piece of paper on the floor, that fell out when he took out his phone. 

“Hey,” he hears Yann say on the other end of the phone. He opens up the crinkled paper and smiles when he sees it.

“Hey,” Lucas replies, looking over the drawing of a small hedgehog with the words  you can do anything  written above it. “Sorry, I just—“

“It’s okay, you nervous about the exam?” 

“Yeah, but,” he gently traces over the letters. “I think I’m okay now.” 

“You sure? I can meet you at yours first and we can walk together if you want.” 

“Yeah, if that’s alright.” 

“Of course. I’ll leave now.”

“Okay,” he smiles, not taking his eyes off the drawing. “See you in a minute.” 

He hangs up and then opens his camera, snapping a photo of the drawing. He opens Eliott’s contact and sends it. 

_anything huh?_

His reply is almost instant. 

_anything <3_

He smiles and pockets his phone again, folding up the drawing and putting in his pocket too. And, his exam actually goes alright. He doesn’t forget everything. He celebrates after with Eliott and his friends and all the while the drawing stays firmly in his pocket.

And he ends up sticking it up on their fridge when they get back, just so he gets to pass it every morning too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! also sorry if the last part is wildly inaccurate idk how french exams work so i based it off what i know lmao
> 
> hope you enjoyed it!!!! it was supposed to be a 5 n 1 thing but i could not for the life of me think of 2 other things and so. here we are. 
> 
> my tumblr is @mauuvelesbian! :’)


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